Accents
"A Brother Like That"
Dec. 3, across USA skies—As I write this with my laptop on my knee, Rudy and I are winging from California of the West Coast to South Carolina of the East Coast. From the panoramic rim of the Pacific Ocean to the meandering coastline of the Atlantic Ocean. From one daughter's family to another daughter's family. It's a long, long flight for these retirees—enough to faze arthritic 70-agers like us.
We started 7:00 a.m. at Redding, for a 1-hour-and-50-minute flight to Los Angeles which is still very much in California soil, to be marooned at LA for a 2-hour-and-15-minute stopover. Change plane for a flight of 4 hours and 26 minutes to Charlotte airport in North Carolina. Change plane again for a final 1 hour and 4 minutes to Savannah, Georgia (this state is beside our destination in South Carolina), where the members of the clan are meeting us. The e-ticket is very detailed. Three different planes, all for flying a total of 2,826 miles. Statistics that bore when read, reek with hassle once acted, but what the heck, very soon we will be seeing dear, dear Danika, the grandkid!
This keyboard pusher is bereft of fresh news to tackle. But I refuse to be absent from my readers this week. There is this determination to make the communication line continually buzzing, unhampered by distance and the chill of winter. Thanks to the Internet, we are able to travel through intergalactic space yet, and come up with a story to share. A Christmassy yarn to regale my avid listener, the granddaughter.
A friend sent it to me years ago, saying "This was too good and too appropriate for the Christmas season to not pass on." She has no idea as to its author. Anyway, I think I'm ushering in the Christmas spirit through this tale of "A Brother Like That" which is a classic in my compilations. From me to you, early Season's Greeting before you continue reading:
* * *
Paul received an automobile from his brother as a Christmas present. On
Christmas Eve when Paul came out of his office, a street urchin was walking around the shiny new car, admiring it.
"Is this your car, Mister?" he asked.
Paul nodded. "My brother gave it to me for Christmas." The boy was
astounded.
"You mean your brother gave it to you and it didn't cost you nothing? Boy,
I wish..." He hesitated. Of course Paul knew what he was going to wish for. He was going to wish he had a brother like that. But what the lad said jarred Paul
all the way down to his heels.
"I wish," the boy went on, "that I could be a brother like that." Paul looked at the boy in astonishment, then impulsively he added, "Would you like to take a ride in my automobile?"
"Oh yes, I'd love that." After a short ride, the boy turned and with his eyes aglow, said, "Mister, would you mind driving in front of my house?" Paul smiled a little. He thought he knew what the lad wanted. He wanted to show his neighbors that he could ride home in a big automobile. But Paul was wrong again.
"Will you stop where those two steps are?" the boy asked. He ran up the
steps. Then in a little while Paul heard him coming back, but he was not coming fast. He was carrying his little crippled brother. He sat him down on the bottom step, then sort of squeezed up against him and pointed to the car. "There she is, Buddy, just like I told you upstairs. His brother gave it to him for Christmas and it didn't cost him a cent. And some day I'm gonna give you one just like it...then you can see for yourself all the pretty things in the Christmas windows that I've been trying to tell you about."
Paul got out and lifted the lad to the front seat of his car. The shining-eyed older brother climbed in beside him and the three of them began a memorable holiday ride.
That Christmas Eve, Paul learned what Jesus meant when he said: "It is more blessed to give than to receive."
My Holiday Wish for the World Is That We all Could Be Brothers Like That.
* * *
I'll read it to Danika, hoping she would remember this heartwarming tale of Christmas in the innumerable Christmases she would be having in her lifetime.
(Email: lagoc@hargray.com)